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10/3/2005

Lara Schnitger

Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm

My Other Car is a Broom

"Schnitger is a vital part of a young flourishing art scene in LA that is very active and multi faceted. Her sculptures and installations combine a feeling of the metropolis with that of home-made craft."
Richard Julin, exhibition curator

In dialogue with previous key works Lara Schnitger has created a number of new works for the exhibition at Magasin 3. The titles of the artwork unveil her sources of inspiration, ranging from American housewives to futile men. Lara Schnitger works with fabric. Flowery or checkered figures challenge and relate to each another. In a very personal way she deals with humor, eroticism, and politics in her works reminding of clothes as well as architecture. In the same way as the separate pieces are made of collages of fabrics, when put together the artist wants them to form a new entity, a new tableau.

"Gridlock" is the first artwork the visitors encounter in the exhibition spaces. Resembling a wall of colorful pennants the work functioned as a screen dividing the room while Schnitger's exhibition was being installed. For the opening the piece was transformed, like a spider web it found its way to the other works, and now is rather leading the visitors into the exhibition.

The title of the exhibition is "My Other Car is a Broom". It is one of many messages selected from the car bumper stickers included in the work "Gridlock". Schnitger has repeatedly incorporated texts in her work, using them as signs and signals. The work also refers to Japanese construction sites, Tibetan prayer flags, and the election movements in USA. This is telling for Schnitger's way of working. She piles impressions onto each other, letting places and events fuse together to form new meanings. Schnitger who has traveled extensively and lived in the Netherlands, USA, and Japan, among other countries, is interested in different cultures and the clashes they may cause. Describing a visit to a Japanese Buddhist temple she concludes:
"In Japan I saw Barbie dolls and Hello Kitty next to old stone sculptures. I feel that our times are like that. This mixture of things makes perfect sense to me."

In the exhibition the artist has created a variety of different moods. "Piece of Shit" is a reaction to the American invasion of Iraq. It is supposed to take up space, be hard to get past. The artist describes the work as "a fat, not that elegant, stubborn, big piece". For the installation "The Only One" Schnitger has recorded songs. The songs are associative comments to the other works. She finds the record embarrassing - a feeling she wants to capture, and also values. The setting is inspired by a trip to Tibet and the cozy interiors of temples and teahouses she came across. In yet another room the sticks supporting the fabric have been removed, the fabrics are just hanging, the sculptures are deflated. The emotional width in Schnitger's work becomes apparent. Maybe a feeling of sadness exists here, in contrast to the obvious humor present in many of the other works.

"My Other Car is a Broom" is the first presentation of Schnitger in Sweden. She was born in the Netherlands, 1969, but resides in Los Angeles. Lara Schnitger has exhibited in venues across Europe, USA, and Asia, including Kunst-Werke, Berlin, 2000; Statement, Basel Art Fair, 2001; and P.S.1, New York, 2002. She has received grants from the Mondriaan Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her work is currently on view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in an exhibition including works by several of Los Angeles's upcoming artists.

An interview with the artist by Richard Julin is published in the exhibition catalogue.

Lara Schnitger, Born 1969 in Haarlem, the Netherlands, lives and works in Los Angeles, USA

Image: "Grid Lock", 2005. Courtesy the artist and Anton Kern Gallery. Photo: Mattias Givell

Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
Frihamnen
SE - 115 56 Stockholm
Sweden

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